


rare is this love (keep it covered)

by bilexualclarke



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Attempted Sexual Assault, Caretaking, Consensual Underage Sex, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, First Time, Jealousy, Loss of Virginity, Protectiveness, Rosethorne, Size Kink, Slow Burn, The tags say it all, literally the slowest burn ive ever written, yall already know whats about to go down
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:35:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25901431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bilexualclarke/pseuds/bilexualclarke
Summary: Prim has learned that if she asks for something directly, Gale has a hard time saying no to her. So when he knocks on her door on Saturday morning, the week after her fourteenth birthday, Prim opens it with Katniss’s bow in her hand and the quiver of arrows slung over her shoulder. She’s hunched over awkwardly, unused to the weight. A shadow falls over Gale’s face.“Please,” she says before he can say anything. “Will you show me?”or, Katniss dies in the 74th Hunger Games. Prim and Gale are left behind.
Relationships: Primrose Everdeen/Gale Hawthorne
Comments: 34
Kudos: 122





	rare is this love (keep it covered)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [betts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/betts/gifts).



> tw: I tagged "attempted sexual assault" out of caution because there is a scene in Part IV where a handsy boyfriend doesn't listen to the word "no". It's a very brief scene and idk if it even really counts as assault but I figured it's better to be safe than sorry.
> 
> the working title of this fic was "Show Me", which should tell you everything you need to know tbh. I wrote this out of curiosity about the Prim/Gale dynamic, and as a birthday present for Betts, who is a terrific person and a wonderful friend. if you are one of the three people who are probably going to read this, I hope you enjoy!

* * *

**PART ONE**

* * *

Katniss dies, and the room falls silent. The cameras zoom in on her face, her eyes wide with shock, her mouth moving without saying anything, and then pan out to show the knife sticking out of her chest. There is a laugh, cackling and distant, like it’s happening in another room. Clove. Licking her twisted lips and yanking the knife from Katniss’s chest with a triumphant cry. The girl leaps off of Katniss’s body and runs away, and Prim blinks at the screen. 

The cannon sounds.

Buttercup leaps off Prim’s lap and flees the room. There are noises now, people talking, but everything sounds like static. One sound, higher than the others, repeats until it finally registers in Prim’s brain.

“What are we going to do?”

Her mother. Prim turns her head. Her mother is holding onto the back of a chair, hunched over, Hazelle Hawthorne’s arms wrapped around her. She keeps repeating the words, staring at the screen as Katniss’s body is lifted from the arena. She doesn’t say anything about her daughter, her dead daughter, the baby she carried for nine months and the child she raised for sixteen years. 

_ “What are we going to do?” _

Prim turns back around and looks at the screen. It should have been her. It was supposed to be her. Everything would have been alright if it was her. No one would have expected her to win. They would have been mourning her the moment she stepped on stage. 

Katniss was different. She had a chance. She was a survivor. She knew how to take care of herself, take care of others. If Prim had died, like she was supposed to, Katniss would have made sure everything was alright. Now Prim is the one who’s left behind, and she doesn’t know how to take care of anyone. 

Her lips are wet. She wipes them with the back of her hand, smearing the mix of snot and tears she didn’t realize she was producing. Rory is sitting next to her on the couch, trying to soothe Posy, who’s crying because everyone else is. Vick is cross-legged on the ground in front of her, staring up at her with wide, glassy eyes. Waiting to see what she’s going to do. The back door slams, and the place in the kitchen where Gale was standing seems to be vibrating with the furious energy he left behind. 

Prim gets to her feet. Her legs take her outside on their own accord. Vick calls after her, but she doesn’t turn around. Gale is storming down the street. It’s nearly dusk. Mostly everyone is inside watching the Games, but there are a few people outside, coming home from the mines, or taking their laundry off the line. They watch the two of them with knowing expressions, their mouths twisted into solemn frowns at Gale’s long, angry strides and Prim following behind him, nearly jogging to try to catch up. 

Just as she is about to reach him, Gale turns on his heel and spins around, his eyes burning. 

“What?” he snaps.

Prim doesn’t know if he realizes that it’s her. She shrinks back at his harsh tone, and only then does his gaze soften, but he doesn’t apologize. His chest is heaving with labored breaths but his eyes are dry, and there are no tear tracks on his cheeks.

She wipes her own from her face, unsure of what to say. Unsure of why she followed him in the first place when he probably wants to be alone. She can only imagine how much he must hate her at this moment. The last face he wants to see, the girl who should be dead instead. 

“What are we going to do?” she says eventually, her voice cracking. 

She expects him to comfort her, like she’s seen him do with Posy. She expects him to wrap her up in a hug and let her cry, maybe even cry himself, even if he’s mad at her. She expects him to tell her that it’s going to be okay.

Gale just stares at her for a long minute, then turns back around and walks away. 

* * *

Mayor Undersee hands Prim a heavy envelope embossed with shimmering Capitol letterhead and rests a hand on her shoulder. She stands awkwardly in her doorway, her mother passed out inside. 

“I’m so very sorry for your loss,” he says, and his voice is surprisingly earnest, his eyes warm and kind. He clears his throat, and his next words are stiff and formal, following a script that he must know by heart after so many years. “The Capitol is grateful for Katniss’s participation in the 74th Annual Hunger Games, and wishes to honor her courage and sacrifice. She fought admirably, and represented District Twelve well.”

Prim’s shaking fingers tear open the envelope and she quickly scans the page. She has to bite back a laugh. The Capitol extends its condolences in the form of six weeks of extra grain rations and a check for one hundred dollars. 

“Thank you,” Prim says stiffly, because she knows she has to. The Mayor ducks his head and she goes back inside without saying goodbye. 

Hazelle Hawthorne takes her to the Treasury Building to cash the check. It’s a tall gray building in the Town Square, not far from the Reaping stage. Prim has never been inside before. She’s never had to– you don’t need money to get things in the Seam. Everything they have they traded for, whether it be with her mother’s medicinal services or the fresh game Katniss brought home from the woods. The building is air conditioned, and Prim shivers as she stands in line next to Hazelle, their scuffed shoes and faded clothes out of place on top of the shining marble floor. 

“You must be sixteen years of age to open your own account,” the clerk behind the desk says, staring up at Prim over the rim of her rectangular purple glasses. 

“My mother has an account,” Prim says, finding her voice with Hazelle’s encouraging smile. “Annalise Everdeen.”

The building has an echo to it. The click-clacking of the keys reverberates around them as the clerk furiously types at her keyboard. She sucks on her teeth and looks back up at Prim.

“That account was closed two years ago due to insufficient funds,” she says, like she’s annoyed at them for wasting her time. 

“She has the funds now,” Hazelle chimes in. She slides the check across the counter to the clerk. “Can you reopen it?”

“Not without the owner of the account present.”

Prim deflates. Her mother hasn’t gotten out of bed in days. Hazelle swipes the check off the counter and grabs Prim’s elbow, turning her around and leading her out. 

“Don’t worry,” she tells as they walk out of the building. “We’ll figure it out.”

* * *

Someone is knocking at the back door. Prim uncurls herself from her mother’s sleeping form– she supposes she could take Katniss’s bed now that it’s empty, but she isn’t ready to start sleeping by herself– and stumbles to the door, wiping the sleep from her eyes. It’s just after dawn, soft orange light just starting to fill the sky. When Prim opens the door, she jumps and scurries back with a squeak.

Gale is standing in the doorway, two dead rabbits in his hand. 

Katniss always hid the animals from Prim, knowing she didn’t have to heart to see them. Even when she ate them, she liked to pretend that they were something else. Prim had read about vegetarians, knew that it was a Capitol diet, followed by the people who loved animals more than people, who couldn’t bear to see them suffer for the sake of someone else’s hunger. Prim thought about becoming one someday, if she ever made enough money to buy enough fresh produce to sustain her. The beans shipped in from District Eleven cost an arm and a leg alone. 

“I’ll come by later,” is all Gale says, thrusting the rabbits into her hands. “Show you how to skin ‘em and cook ‘em.”

Prim keeps her arm stretched out, away from her body. Her stomach twists when she looks into their lifeless eyes. They’re limp, mouths agape, reminding her of Katniss’s lifeless body being picked up out of the Arena by the crane. 

“Me?” she gulps, looking up at Gale. 

“Gotta learn somehow.” Gale shifts his weight from one foot and onto the other. “Unless you wanna survive on tessera bread and the school slop.”

Prim vehemently shakes her head. She’ll eat animals for the rest of her life if it meant not eating the school slop ever again. She never told Katniss, because she knew her sister would have given her a lecture about always eating what she could, but Prim never ate the food they served at school. She always gave her tray away to one of her friends, and ignored her hunger pains until dinner. 

Gale gives her a sharp nod. “Good.” He turns away. 

Prim steps half out the door after him. “Wait,” she says. She doesn’t bother to lower her voice. Nothing will wake up her mother anyway. Gale turns back around. “You don’t have to do this. Your family–”

“We’re fine,” he says, standing up straighter, puffing out his chest. “I take care of ‘em. I can take care of you, too.”

“Gale, I–”

“I promised,” he says sternly, leaving no room for argument. “I promised her that I would.”

Prim sucks in a sharp breath. Of course he did. She can only imagine what he and Katniss had said to each other, in their final moments before the Capitol tore them apart. Did they kiss? Confess their love? Katniss had never told Prim that she thought of Gale as anything more than a friend, a brother, but Prim noticed the way Gale looked at her. Prim is a romantic at heart. She knows they would have fallen in love eventually.

A small part of Prim burns with shame at Gale’s words. Did Katniss beg Gale to look after her family, to keep them safe when she wasn’t around, because she knew they wouldn’t be able to do it without her? Were Katniss’s last moments of freedom spent worrying about her incompetent mother and scared, useless little sister. As much as Prim despises the thought, another part of her is relieved. 

“Okay,” Prim concedes. She sniffs and blinks away the tears that had sprung into her eyes at the thought of Katniss. She’s not sleepy anymore, but she’ll crawl back into bed with her mother anyway. She still has another hour before she needs to be up for school. “So, I guess I’ll see you tonight?”

The second the words leave her mouth, she wants to swallow them back up. She had attempted to sound grown up, ready to take on the responsibility of her family. Instead she sounded hopeful, flirty, like it was a date instead of a necessity, like her dead sister won’t be hanging between them the whole time. 

But Gale’s lips twitch, not quite a smile, but not a frown either. “Yeah,” he says. “I’ll see you tonight.”

* * *

There is a table in the far left corner of the cafeteria that has become the unspoken spot for the family members of dead tributes. Prim never thought that she would be sitting there, but it doesn’t take long before she is unable to stand the sideways glances from her friends, their stilted apologies and the cautious way they look at her, as if they’re waiting for her to fall apart. The kids at the table don’t look at her with pity, they don’t ask her how she’s doing. They all just sit together and eat in companionable silence, their eyes sad and knowing. 

When school lets out, Prim is relieved. Their summer break is two months without homework, not one created out of respite for the students but because the school is too hot to teach in during July and August. The District saves money by not paying the teachers and not installing any cooling units. During the break, the younger kids run loose around the District, especially those in the Seam. The townie kids have music lessons and movie screenings and other things to keep them busy. Prim is old enough now that her summer is supposed to be spent working, shadowing someone, learning a trade, something for her to contribute to the District once she graduates.

She was supposed to start studying under her mother, but Annalise has yet to emerge from inside her own head. She gets up now, walks around the house aimlessly, eats here and there, but barely speaks. Her eyes are always a little unfocused, staring off into the distance. Prim doesn’t know how to deal with her. She wonders how Katniss did it all those years ago, how she managed to snap their mother out of her depression and remind her that there are people left behind that still need her. 

Hazelle helps out when she can, does their laundry free of charge and brings Prim some food that she can easily reheat over the stove. Prim knows that Hazelle lost her husband in the same accident that killed her own father. She wonders if when that happened, Hazelle shut down, too, or if her love for her children was enough to keep her going. 

* * *

“Jesus!” Gale exclaims. “The fuck are you doing out here?”

The sun has yet to rise, the darkness of the night just starting to fade away into the early blue hues of dawn. Prim had thought she was being sneaky, until she stepped on a twig and made Gale jump nearly a foot in the air. 

She stands up as tall as she can. “I want you to teach me how to hunt.”

Gale is not impressed. “No.”

Prim frowns. “But I–”

“I said no.” He marches over and grabs her arm, starts tugging her back to the main road. “Do you know how dangerous it is?”

“Katniss did it,” Prim says defiantly, yanking her arm back. “Started when she was my age.”

“That doesn’t matter. You think the Peacekeepers care how old you are? If you get caught, they’ll turn your back to hide.”

“So I won’t get caught.”

Gale sighs and scrubs his hand over his face. “Prim, you’re not–”

“I’m not useless, okay? I can do it. I have to do it.” Her lower lip trembles but she keeps her voice steady. “I just need you to show me.”

Gale stares at her for a long minute. He doesn’t tell her no again, so Prim keeps talking. 

“You go to the mines soon. You won’t have as much time to hunt.” He is part of the new batch of recruits starting in two weeks. Twelve hour days, six days a week. “Just teach me the basics until then.  _ Please. _ For Katniss.”

His shoulders sag and he ducks his head, rubbing the back of his neck. “Jesus,” he mumbles to himself. “Alright, fine.”

Prim lets out an excited squeal and throws her arms around him. Gale lets out a surprised grunt and awkwardly pats her back. 

“Keep up and keep quiet,” he says as he leads her to the fenceline. “And do exactly as I say.”

Prim nods solemnly and, biting back a smile, follows him into the woods. 

* * *

**PART TWO**

* * *

They go to the woods every morning. Prim waits for Gale’s knock– he insists on coming to get her each morning, doesn’t like the idea of her walking by herself– and they head out in the early morning light. Most of what Gale shows her is focused on setting traps and foraging, learning how to determine which plants are edible, medicinal, or poisonous. Though he does shoot a deer one morning, and Prim tries her hardest not to let him see her cry. He takes pity on her, sends her off to look for some radishes while he takes care of the carcass. 

She is surprised by the stillness of the forest, the comforting silence, the way it makes time feel thick and impossibly slow. She is also surprised by Gale, the way he seems to relax with each step they take beyond the fence, the light that appears behind his eyes. She wonders if Katniss felt this way too, if she continued to hunt not just to feed her family, but for a chance to feel free.

As the days go on, Prim realizes how little she truly knows about Gale. For so long, he had existed to her only as an extension of Katniss, an addition to her personality instead of one of his own. Despite his palpable relaxation in the forest, he does not exactly try to be friendly. The only time they really talk is when he is explaining something to her, showing her how to tie a knot or pointing out a patch of poison ivy. Prim makes the mistake of bringing up Katniss a few times, and each time Gale’s eyes shutter and his frown deepens. She doesn’t want to make him mad, worried that he’ll send her home and stop teaching her, so she quickly changes the subject. But she can’t escape the hollow feeling inside of her, the fear that the part of her that was her sister is slowly fading away.

The last day before Gale is set to start work in the mines is Prim’s thirteenth birthday. She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t want to make it seem like she’s asking for attention, even though there’s no logical reason why Gale wouldn’t know. He sat at her table last year, next to Katniss, and watched with a smile as she blew out her candles, ruffled her hair when he left. Now, Prim sits in the grass beside Gale and works quietly on her snare, trying to complete it herself, without his guidance. She is surprised by how quickly she has caught on to his teachings, and how much her confidence is growing each day. 

“Hey,” Gale says, drawing her attention away from the snare. He reaches into his pocket and holds something out to her. “Happy Birthday.”

Prim takes it with wide eyes. She hadn’t even expected him to remember something so trivial, let alone get her a gift. It’s a hair ribbon, light blue, the same shade as her eyes. The material is shiny and new, impossibly soft. Prim runs her thumb over it reverently, worried it might dissolve with her touch, and looks up at him in shock. 

“Gale, how did you–”

“You need something to keep your hair out of your eyes,” he says, knocking his knee into hers. “I don’t want to hear you complaining about any leaves getting caught in it now, either.”

Prim flushes, unable to contain her grin as she winds the ribbon into her hair, tying it into a bow at the base of her neck. She turns to the side so Gale can see it, and she looks at him over her shoulder. 

“What do you think?” she asks. 

He has a smile on his face, too. The first real one she’s seen on him in a long time. “Looks good, kid.”

* * *

The first Reaping after Katniss is harder than Prim expected it to be. The morning of, she wakes in a cold sweat, unable to catch her breath. She feels a sickening sense of guilt that her panic isn’t because it’s a reminder of the day Katniss condemned herself to die, but because if her name is drawn again, there will be no one to save her this time. Even if she doesn’t get called, her relief will be bittersweet. She knows the pain of loss now. There is no way she can walk out of the Square feeling like a weight has been lifted off her shoulders, now knowing how it feels to be the one left behind. Knowing the pain that another family is about to feel. 

Prim watches with glassy eyes as two Seam kids stand on the stage, their faces ashen, their hands clenched in fists by their sides. They’re both sixteen, and she recognizes their faces from school, but doesn’t think she’s ever spoken to either of them. She wonders if they have siblings, if there will be new faces at her lunch table in the coming weeks. 

The walk back home is a somber affair. Prim finds Gale and his family in the crowd as they disperse. Even Posy knows to be quiet, holding Prim’s hand as they walk and sucking on her thumb.

“Come have some tea,” Hazelle offers to her mother when they reach the Hawthorne’s home. “You don’t have to be alone, Annalise.”

Prim’s lips twist into a scowl when her mother shakes her head. “I need to lay down.”

Her mother has started to come back to herself over the last year, started working again, leaving the house, secure in the knowledge that they weren’t going to starve. Prim isn’t bringing home a feast by any means, but she manages to keep them fed with her snares and whatever wild vegetables she finds. Since Gale started working in the mines, they only go into the woods together on Saturday mornings, and Prim has learned to ration their hauls to make it through the week. She has yet to develop the confidence to sneak past the fence by herself. 

Prim is proud of her contributions, but her pride is tinged with resentment. She shouldn’t have to be of use to be of value. 

Annalise looks at her. “Let’s go, dear.”

Gale squeezes Prim’s shoulder. “She can have dinner with us tonight,” he tells her mother. “She shouldn’t be alone either.”

* * *

Prim has learned that if she asks for something directly, Gale has a hard time saying no to her. So when he knocks on her door on Saturday morning, the week after her fourteenth birthday, Prim opens it with Katniss’s bow in her hand and the quiver of arrows slung over her shoulder. She’s hunched over awkwardly, unused to the weight. A shadow falls over Gale’s face.

“Please,” she says before he can say anything. “Will you show me?”

Her theory is proven correct; by the time they are walking out of the woods, her arm is aching from the weight of the bow, her fingertips plucked raw from the bowstring. She hadn’t even fired an arrow, just kept pulling the string taut. Gale had insisted she learn the proper form first, and kept having her adjust her stance, raise her arm, keep her head steady. The following week he has her fire arrows into various plots in the dirt, getting a feel for how much strength she needs for each target. The next week he uses a knife to chip away three lines on the bark of the tree, showing her how to aim in between each one. It takes a while, but Prim eventually gets the hang of it, enough so that one morning, in the heart of the summer, Gale finally decides that she’s ready to hunt for real. 

“Why don’t you talk about her?” Prim whispers. They are crouched by the creek, waiting to spot a deer. She pulls her knees to her chest and rests her chin atop them, turning to look at Gale.

He has his own bow in his hand, eyes squinted, scanning the underbrush around them. “Don’t need to.”

“You should.” Prim idly plays with the laces of her boots. Katniss’s old boots. “We have to. She’s gone if we don’t.”

A branch snaps and Prim reaches for her bow. A deer creeps out of the trees and down toward the creek, dipping its head for a drink. Prim nocks her arrow and takes aim.

“Steady,” Gale murmurs beside her. He’s poised to shoot as well. Prim takes a deep breath, holds it.

Shoots.

Exhales.

Her arrow goes wide, but Gale’s finds its home in the deer’s eye. The animal falls, it’s head splashing in the water. Prim looks away.

Gale hauls its body out of the water as Prim retrieves her arrow. When she comes back, he looks up at her from where he is crouched at the deer’s side. 

“You want to talk about her?” he asks. His eyes are clouded with sadness. It’s been almost two years. Prim wonders if he ever really let himself grieve.

“Of course I do.” She hands him a knife she has tucked into her belt. “It’s not fair that you keep her to yourself. I miss her, too.”

“I’m not trying to keep her. I just…I don’t know how to talk about her without...”

Prim rests her hand on his arm. “It’s okay to still be upset.” 

Gale swallows thickly. “I’m angry,” he whispers, more to himself than to her. “I’m still so angry. And I’m scared that if I stop, all that will be left is…”

Prim moves down his arm so she can grab his hand. She squeezes it once. “We can be sad together.”

Gale squeezes her hand back. “Alright. Together, then.”

And so they talk. Gale tells her about the day he met Katniss, about their first hunts together, about how they became friends. Prim tells him about how Katniss would sing her to sleep, braid her hair, read her stories and use silly voices. Prim cries, and Gale pretends he doesn’t. The conversations eventually become easier, their memories overflowing until it feels like Katniss is there with them. Prim feels lighter, and as she grows more comfortable with the bow, she feels closer to Katniss than ever before. 

Prim hears Gale laugh for the first time when she’s telling him the story of how her goat, Lady, chomped on Katniss’s hand and broke her pinky finger. Lady had gotten into the house and stolen Katniss’s socks, her only pair without holes in them, and Katniss had chased her outside and wrestled with her in the dirt.

“She told me she slammed it in a door,” Gale says, wiping the corners of his eyes, his shoulders shaking. “Oh my God. I bet she was pissed.”

“She threatened to sell Lady to Greasy Sae,” Prim says through her own giggles. “The only reason she didn’t was because I started crying so hard I gave myself the hiccups.” Gale dissolves into a fit of laughter again. The sound of it makes her stomach flip, and the fact that she’s responsible for it makes her cheeks flush with pride. Not many people can make Gale Hawthorne smile, but to make him laugh? Prim might as well have won the Games herself. 

* * *

Jalen Coor is a childless widow with a hard face and a mean streak a mile wide. She also is responsible for the production of the highest quality garments outside of the Capitol. It’s rumored that she has a deal with the Peacekeepers in order to secure the best textiles from the shipments from District Eight, and her winter wear is a hot commodity throughout the entire District. Her carefully knitted caps, scarves, and gloves are the only things capable of keeping the chill out of your bones during the harsh winters, especially down in the mines. She drives a notoriously hard bargain, and it is well-known that to own one of her pieces means that you offered something precious to get it. 

Jalen Coor doesn’t deal with money.

Prim had only ventured into the Hob a few times in her life, always hanging on Katniss’s coattails, watching with wide eyes as her sister bartered for things like sugar, cream, or new shoes. She hangs back at the entrance now, wringing her hands, smoothing over the wrinkles in her shirt. Working up the courage to go inside. A few people throw her curious glances as they pass by, but Prim ignores them. At least the pitying stares have stopped now. They didn’t last too long anyway. She isn’t special; there’s always someone to mourn in District Twelve. 

When Prim approaches her booth, Jalen Coor rolls her eyes and turns around. “Don’t even bother, girl.”

Prim falters. An old man in the next stall over muffles his laugh. Her face is hot, but she squares her shoulders and clears her throat.

“I would like a wool hat, please.” 

Jalen snorts but doesn’t turn around, focusing on folding a stack of scarves.

“Excuse me. I want the red one.”

Everyone is staring at them now. Prim’s hands start to shake. 

“I can trade for it.”

Jalen shoots her a look over her shoulder. “Unless you’ve got some morphling hidden up your sleeve, there’s nothin’ ya have that’s worth what I got.”

Gritting her teeth, Prim slams her bag onto the table, making Jalen jump. The woman finally turns around and Prim quickly blinks back her embarrassed tears. She opens the bag and shows Jalen its contents: two pheasants, a rabbit, and three squirrels. Fresh from the snares that morning. Gale had been excited by their haul, and she had told him that she was going to make a stew. But tomorrow is his twentieth birthday, and winter is creeping up on them faster than usual. She wants to get him something nice, something to show that she cares, that she appreciates everything he’s done for her. 

“Well, looky here,” Jalen says, letting out a low whistle. She goes to reach into the bag and Prim yanks it back. “Alright, girl. Got a bit of your sister’s bite in ya, huh?”

Prim sniffs. “The red hat, please.”

Jalen smirks. “Red yarn’s the most expensive. I’m gonna need a little more from ya.”

“This is all I’ve got.”

Jalen’s eyes fall to the side of Prim’s bag, and her smirk widens. Katniss’s personal effects had been sent home after the Games, and that included the golden mockingjay pin. Prim had clipped it to her hunting satchel as a way of keeping her sister with her, bringing her good luck in the woods. 

“I remember that pin. Didn’t do much good for her, did it?” Jalen says snarkily. 

Prim clutches her bag closer. “You can’t have it.”

“Alright,” Jalen shrugs. “No deal then.”

“What about if I–”

“No deal without the pin.”

Prim’s heart sinks. Her finger traces over the pin, remembers slipping into Katniss’s hands, remembers scrubbing the blood off of it when it was returned to her. She takes a deep breath.

“Fine,” she spits at Jalen, unclipping the pin from her hand and squeezing it tightly. “Fine. The pin and the game. Nothing more.”

Jalen grins, her teeth crooked and yellow. “You’ve got a deal, girl.”

As she’s leaving, equal parts angry and triumphant, the hat clutched tightly in her hand, Prim is stopped by a Peacekeeper. He’s new, part of a shipment that arrived in the District a few weeks ago. His nose is chapped red from the November cold and his eyes are cool and emotionless. He grabs her by the elbow and looks down at her with a sneer. 

“That wouldn’t be illegal game you were trading for that hat, would it?” he says, condescending. 

Prim swallows thickly. “No, sir,” she says. “I bought this with the money my mother gave me. I didn’t trade anything.”

“Don’t lie to me.” He squeezes her arm tight enough for her to cry out. Prim looks around, but everyone at all of the stalls are averting their gaze, purposefully going about their business and paying no attention to her. The Peacekeeper jerks her forward, starts dragging her out into the street. “Do you know what the punishment is for hunting, little girl? For going outside the fence line?”

Prim tries to yank her arm back, but something suddenly crashes into both of them from behind. Prim falls to the ground and drops the hat. She quickly saves it from being crushed under a passerby’s dirty boot and scrambles to stand up. A few feet away, the Peacekeeper is also getting to his feet, brushing dirt from his uniform, his face twisted into an angry frown. Haymitch Abernathy stands between them, swaying on his feet. A glass bottle is dangling from his fingertips and he lets out an impressive belch.

“Sorry,” he hiccups at the Peacekeeper. “Didn’t see ya there, buddy.”

“Public intoxication is a crime as well,” the man spits at Haymitch. “Don’t think you’re exempt because you’re a Victor.”

“Write me a citation,” Haymitch mumbles. “See if I give a fuck.”

Prim takes a few steps back. The Peacekeeper locks eyes on her and starts forward, but Haymitch moves at the same time. He falls into the Peacekeeper and wraps his arm around the man’s shoulders, swaying into him with all his weight. The Peacekeeper staggers and throws an arm out to catch his balance. Haymitch looks back at Prim, his eyes remarkably clear despite his slurred speech, and jerks his chin at her. Prim takes the hint and bolts around the corner, just in time to hear Haymitch telling the Peacekeeper that he could show him a few ways to loosen up.

Prim runs until she makes it onto her street, a stitch in her side and her breath coming in labored pants. As she slows to a walk, dusting the dirt off the hat, she wonders if Haymitch knew who she was, if he helped her because he felt bad about Katniss. If he even cared about Katniss at all, or if she was just another name on the list of dead tributes that must haunt him, another face he tries to forget. 

For Gale’s birthday dinner, Hazelle makes some type of meat pie that Prim has never heard of before. It smells smoky and tastes delicious, and Gale finishes three helpings before Prim is done with her first. The hat is wrapped in cloth and tied with a piece of twine, sitting on the kitchen counter. Prim keeps glancing towards it as she eats, wondering if Gale will like it, or if he’ll be mad at her for wasting a trade on him.

“Oh, Gale,” Hazelle gasps when he finally opens his gift, peeling back the cloth and picking up the hat with a curious expression. “That’s just lovely.”

His eyes flash to Prim, suspicious. “What did you trade for this?”

Prim averts her gaze. “Just yesterday’s game.”

“Prim, that’s too–”

“Nice and thoughtful,” Hazelle finishes for him, smacking his shoulder. “Forgive me, Primrose, for not raising a young man with manners.”

Gale rolls his eyes. “I’ve got manners, Ma.”

“Then why aren’t you thanking the sweet girl for doing something nice for you?”

Grumbling, Gale gets up and rounds the table, coming to stand behind Prim. She thinks he’s going to give her a hug, but instead he ducks down and kisses the top of her head before ruffling her hair. Her cheeks heat up and her heart stutters in her chest.

“Thanks, kid,” he says, tucking the cap onto his head. His dark curls peek out from the sides. “It’s perfect.”

He wears it every day that winter.

* * *

**PART THREE**

* * *

When Prim is fifteen, the buttons of her pants start to dig into her stomach and her shirts start to pull against her ribs. It happens almost overnight: one day she’s boney and shapeless, and the next there is a curve to her waist and fullness to her bottom, her breasts round and heavy on her chest. She sits at the table in the Hawthorne’s kitchen, watching Hazelle do her best to take out a few of her shirts. Next to her, Posy has her homework spread out on the table, and Prim is helping her with her times tables.

Rory walks in the door, Vick hot on his heels, and sees Prim sitting there and laughs. 

“What’s so funny?” Prim asks.

“You’re always hanging out here now,” Rory says, tugging on one of Posy’s braids as he walks by. “Just like Katniss. You’re like her little replacement.”

“ _ Rory Matthew _ .” Hazelle turns around and whacks the back of his head. “Prim is a part of this family, just like her sister,” she snaps. “She isn’t a replacement for anyone.”

“I was just joking, jeez,” Rory says sullenly, rubbing his head. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Prim says lightly, but when she looks back down to check Posy’s work, her vision is blurred with unshed tears. She knows that Rory is just playing around, that he likes to joke a little too much, but his words poke at an insecurity that has been lingering in her mind for a while. 

She has been hanging out with Gale more often, outside of their weekly trips to the woods. Sometimes she will already be at the Hawthorne’s house when he gets home from work, helping Posy as she is now, or assisting Hazelle with her laundry load. She doesn’t like to spend much time at home if she doesn’t have to. After dinner, Gale will sit with her out on the back porch and they’ll bullshit about their days. He’ll complain about the mines, she’ll complain about school, and together they’ll wonder what their lives would have been like if they had been born in another District, or in another world. 

But the more time they spend together, the more Prim worries: Is he just hanging out with her because he feels bad, because she’s his dead best friend’s little sister? Does he only like being around her because she reminds him of Katniss, or he because he actually enjoys her company? 

“You staying for dinner, honey?” Hazelle asks once she’s finished with the shirts.

Prim shakes her head. “I’m eating with my mother tonight,” she lies. 

Her and Annalise exist purely as roommates, exchanging nothing more than banal conversation. Prim makes sure that there’s food on the table and that the house is warm, and in return, her mother doesn’t bother her. Prim knows that she must feel guilty for her behavior, but it does not help curb the anger that has been simmering inside Prim for the last few years. She hates that her mother abandoned her twice, but it’s easier to keep the conversation light and cordial, rather than bring up something that is likely to end in a fight. 

Annalise has not mentioned Katniss since the day she died. Prim hates her for that, too. 

Vick offers to walk Prim back home. Like his brothers before him, he has hit a growth spurt that leaves him towering over her, thirteen years old and longer limbs than he knows what to do with. 

“Rory’s wrong, you know,” he says as they walk. He never says much, since Rory normally takes up all the air in the room, but Prim likes him. He reminds her of Gale, or what she thinks Gale might have been at this age, without all the weight on his shoulders and worry behind his eyes. “You’re not like Katniss at all.”

“I don’t want to  _ not _ be like her,” Prim explains. “She was amazing. Better than I ever could be. I just… I don’t know. I can’t explain it. It sounds dumb.”

“You don’t want to live under her shadow. You want to be seen for you,” Vick says softly.

Prim gives him a sad smile. “Yeah,” she breathes. “Exactly.”

* * *

The strawberries are in season and Gale bundles them up to take to the Mayor’s mansion. Prim knows that he trades there sometimes, but he had never taken her before, and she has always wanted to get a peek inside. She pesters him to let her tag along until he finally relents, and one morning they cut their hunt short and cut across town just as the sun is rising. She is surprised to see that they don’t walk up to the front door, but they go around the side, through the back garden, which is sprawling with all kinds of flora that Prim had never seen before. Gale knocks twice, then pauses, then knocks a third time. When the door opens, Prim’s eyes widen in surprise. She had assumed that they would be dealing with one of the maids of the house, not the Mayor’s daughter herself. 

“Good morning,” Madge Undersee says with a warm smile. “Primrose! It’s good to see you.”

She is even more beautiful in person, with shiny blonde ringlets and bright green eyes. Prim is so used to seeing her projected on the screen next to the Reaping ceremonies, standing solemnly next to her father, that it nearly takes her breath away to see her up close. 

“You know who I am?” Prim says before she can stop herself. Gale snorts and Madge smiles even brighter.

“Of course I do,” she says kindly. Her voice has a musical quality to it. Prim wonders if she ever sings, if she would sound as good as Katniss did. “I was lucky enough to consider your sister a friend. She talked about you often.”

“Oh,” Prim says. She fiddles with the tip of her braid, tied together by the blue ribbon she has worn nearly every day since Gale gave it to her. “I didn’t know that.”

“I’m sorry if it’s not my place to say, but I think she would have been awfully proud of you.” Madge’s eyes cut to Gale for the briefest second. “I hear you’re becoming quite the marksman.”

Prim looks between Madge and Gale. They speak about her? And more importantly, since when is Gale friendly with the Mayor’s daughter? The Mayor’s beautiful daughter? Something twists in the pit of her stomach.

“She’s come a long way,” Gale says, nudging Prim with his elbow, oblivious to her sudden discomfort.

“Well, she must have had a great teacher,” Madge says to him, batting her eyelashes, and Prim watches with horror as Gale Hawthorne  _ blushes _ . 

Panicking, she thrusts out her bag, individually wrapped bundles of strawberries resting inside. “They’re three dollars each, or two for five.”

Madge’s eyebrows dart up in surprise at her hostile tone. Gale looks over at her in shock. 

“Well, that sounds fair,” Madge says slowly, biting the inside of her cheek, like she’s trying not to laugh. “I’ll take two then.” Prim’s mood sours even more. She doesn’t need some Townie laughing at her. When Madge hands over the coins, Prim practically throws the bundles into her hands and storms off.

“Hey!” Gale shouts, catching up to her. “What the hell was that?”

“What? I made the sale.”

“Yeah, with all the warmth of a dead squirrel.” Gale snaps. “Why were you so rude?”

“I wasn’t rude, I was assertive. You said when I’m trading, I have to be confident and assertive, that way no one haggles me.”

“Trust me, you were not going to be  _ haggled _ by Madge Undersee.” Gale steps in front of her, cutting her off. “You think Madge needs those strawberries? Or anything else I sell her? You think there’s anything we’ve got that she can’t get?”

Prim huffs and looks down at the ground, digging her heel into the dirt. 

“She’s good business. She pays a fair price and she’s always discreet. It’s not in our best interest to lose a customer like that.”

Prim crosses her arms. “Looks to me like she wants to be more than just a customer.”

She’s not blind to what goes on around town, already knows way more about what happens at the Slag Heap than she’d like to. Rumors swirl around her classmates, and all the boys in her grade have been talking about beating the record for taking the most girls there, the record set by none other than Gale Hawthorne himself. Prim had ignored those rumors at first, weirded out by the thought of imaging Gale doing... _ that _ . She thought that she was uncomfortable because they had gotten so close, because she thought of him as an older brother, but as the intrusive thoughts kept swirling around her mind, she realized she wasn’t uncomfortable at all.

She was jealous. 

Gale furrows his brow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Do you like her?”

“She’s alright, for a Townie.”

“Bullshit. I saw the way you looked at her.” It’s the first time she’s ever cursed at him. Gale’s eyes widen in shock. “Do you guys have a thing or something?”

Prim expects him to tell her no, to call her crazy for even thinking up something so ludicrous. But instead:

“That’s none of your business.”

Prim feels like the wind has been knocked out of her. Madge Undersee.  _ The Mayor’s daughter _ . Gale has been  _ fucking _ the Mayor’s daughter. If she didn’t feel so sick, she might almost be impressed. Is that why he never took her to trade before? So he could have his time with Madge without her hanging around? Is he in love with the Mayor’s daughter? 

Prim had thought that she was special, that she had a place in Gale’s life that could not be challenged. The realization that he might be paying attention to someone else makes her feel like she’s suffocating. 

Prim digs the coins out of her pockets and tosses them at him. “I don’t want your girlfriend’s money.”

“Prim, stop it. It’s not–”

“I don’t care,” she spits, storming away, ignoring Gale as he calls out after her. He doesn’t take her back to the Mayor’s mansion again. 

* * *

The blouse is a light pink with a scooped neckline and three pearly white buttons at the top. Prim trades a whole turkey for it, and she worries that she’s going to regret such a frivolous purchase, until she gets home and tries it on. It fits perfectly, hugging her every curve and showing off the swell of her breasts. When Prim looks at herself in the mirror, she finally sees a woman and not some scrawny little girl. Her new body excites her. Katniss had always had a flat, boyish figure, and Prim had assumed that she would follow suit. Seam girls are all sharp elbows and sunken cheeks, not wide hips and rounded chests. Prim notices the curious stares she gets from her classmates now, from the men around town. It gives her a thrill, knowing that she’s wanted. 

It’s too nice of a shirt to wear into the woods, but Prim slips it on anyway. Gale doesn’t say anything when she opens the door, but she doesn’t miss the subtle raise of his eyebrows, the way his eyes roam over her body then quickly back to her face.

“You’re gonna be cold,” is all he says. October is coming to a close, and the mornings are crisp enough for them to see their breath in the air. She leaves her jacket open.

“I’ll be fine.”

The silence between them is different this morning, not their usual quiet companionship, but something stitled and awkward. Prim finally breaks it while Gale is re-setting a trap, two dead rabbits on the ground beside them.

“Do you think I’m pretty?”

Gale snaps something on his finger and curses, yanking his hand back. He looks up at her, face colored with confusion, wincing in pain. “What?”

“Well?” Prim presses. “Do you think I’m pretty?”

“You own a mirror,” Gale says, shaking out his hand. “You know you’re pretty.”

Prim frowns. It’s not exactly the answer she’s looking for. “I want to know what you think, though.”

“Doesn’t matter what I think,” he mumbles, getting to his feet. He shoves the rabbits into his bag. “Come on. Let’s head back.”

Prim trudges behind him on the way back to the fence, feeling embarrassed and foolish. Gale Hawthorne could have anyone he wants. He could get the Mayor’s daughter, for fuck’s sake. Why would he ever look twice at her?

When she gets home, she folds the shirt up real small, buries it in the back of her dresser, and doesn’t wear it again.

* * *

**PART FOUR**

* * *

Prim starts to shadow her mother that winter, albeit begrudgingly. She cannot deny her interest in healing, and– assuming she makes it to eighteen without being reaped– she is going to need to settle on a specialization at some point. As much as she dreads it at the beginning, working with her mother is ultimately not as bad as Prim expected it to be. They find a common ground in medicine, and their conversations become easier, aided by a lesson or instruction of some kind. It reminds Prim of her early days hunting with Gale, how him teaching her became the foundation for their friendship to grow. Things with her mother aren’t perfect by any means, but Prim can gradually feel her hostility starting to wane as she allows her mother the opportunity to get to know her daughter again. 

The sirens start to wail on a Wednesday afternoon. Prim is sitting in her classroom, daydreaming instead of listening to her Panem Culture lesson. Her teacher is in the middle of talking about Finnick Odair when the sudden blare of the sirens makes them all jump. 

“Okay, everyone, please remain calm–” her teacher starts to say, but she is drowned out by the entire class getting to their feet and running towards the door. The sirens mean that there has been an accident in the mines. An explosion. A collapse. Prim feels her heart lodge in her throat as her feet carry her out the door, following the horde of her classmates as they run out of the school and towards the mines. As they get closer, they can see the thick plumes of smoke staining the sky, can smell burning rubber and melted steel. 

Workers start to spill out of the entrance to the mineshaft, some of them covered in soot, some covered in blood. Some covered in both. Prim’s eyes dart over everyone that emerges, searching. Finally, two men finally appear out of the shaft, dragging a third between them. The third man is leaving a trail of blood behind him, his left leg bent and tucked up against his body protectively. He’s wearing a dust-covered red cap.

Gale.

Prim runs over, kneeling by his side as the men help him lay down on the ground. His pants are ripped and he has a gash in his calf muscle about six inches long, so deep she can see a flash of bone. Gale is breathing heavily, his eyes scrunched shut in pain.

“We need a healer,” one of the men says, looking around. “Jesus. There’s too many.” More people are spilling out of the mines, and Prim’s feels her stomach lurch when she sees that some of them are missing limbs. 

She looks back up at the men. “Can you carry him again?” she asks.

They blink down at her in surprise, like they hadn’t even known she was there. Gale moans in pain, but turns his head at the sound of her voice. “Prim?”

“Shh, it’s okay,” she says, pulling the sleeve of her shirt over her palm and wiping some of the dirt from his face. “You’re gonna be okay.”

“Y’shouldn’t be here,” he groans, trying to swat her away. 

“What are you talking about?” she says, trying to keep her voice light. “I need to test my skills on someone.”

Gale manages to choke out a pained laugh. “Great. M’a dead man.”

The men, who Prim learns are named Thom and Wyatt, carry Gale back to her house and help lay him across her kitchen table. They had passed her mother on the way, Annalise down rushing to help with whatever triage she can, and Prim is left by herself to stitch up Gale’s wound. He keeps a stiff upper lip the whole time, but Prim can see the sweat dripping down his temples, the way his arms shake as his hands grip the sides of the table. 

“There were still so many down there,” he whispers, his voice hoarse. “They never even had a chance.”

Halfway through her stitches, there’s a knock at the door. Thom answers it and comes back with a small wooden box, three vials of morphling nestled inside. 

“A gift from the Mayor’s daughter,” he says, impressed. “Damn, Hawthorne. What have you been up to?”

“Give it to him,” Prim says, not looking up from her work. She doesn’t have time to be jealous right now. Her fingers are stained with his blood. 

After taking the morphling, Gale relaxes immediately, dropping into a heavy, medicated sleep. Prim quickly finishes her stitches, bandaging him up and slumping back against her chair with a heavy sigh. Pride swells in her chest.  _ She did it _ . It feels good to have the shoe on the other foot, to help him for once. 

Thom and Wyatt leave to go see if they can be of use anywhere else, and Prim watches Gale as he sleeps. She takes a warm cloth and wipes the rest of the soot off his face, his sweat and tears having turned it into crusty clumps around the sides of his eyes, under his nose. 

He stirs suddenly, eyes opening with a gasp, cloudy and unfocused from the morphling. He tries to sit up and Prim presses him back down, trying to keep her voice calm and soft.

“You’re okay, you’re okay,” she says, brushing his hair back off of his sweaty forehead. Since he had been wearing the hat she had gotten him, his hair is the only part of him free of dust and grime. 

“Prim?” he murmurs, focusing on her, his heartbeat calming slightly beneath her touch. 

She reaches for another vial of morphling, but Gale sloppily swipes at her hand. His fingers wrap around her wrist and tugs her close. Her body is frozen, unable to move as his eyes trail over every inch of her face, studying her like he’s seeing her for the first time. Her braid falls over his shoulder and lands on his chest, and his other hand grabs it, his thumb running over the ribbon tied at the bottom.

“Beautiful,” he whispers, his eyes starting to flutter closed again. “You’re so beautiful.”

Prim stares at him, mouth agape, and then he starts to snore. 

The explosion claims the lives of twenty men and casts a pall of sorrow over the entire District. Gale recovers quickly, too quickly for Prim’s liking, but she knows that every day he spends out of the mines is a day without pay. If he remembers calling Prim beautiful, he never gives any indication, but she cannot get his words out of her mind. She wonders if he meant what he said, or if he was too groggy from the morphling to be making any sense. As desperate as Prim is to know, she never asks him about it, and after a while she just tucks the memory away in the back of her mind, where it stays out of her conscious thoughts and replays itself only in her dreams. 

* * *

When she is sixteen, Prim is asked out on a date. It’s a Friday afternoon, and Prim is sitting at her lunch table, working on the math homework that she didn’t finish the night before. She hears someone walk over and stop next to her, and when she looks up, Carter Alvarez is standing at the head of the table. 

“Hey Prim,” he says casually, hands in his pockets, half-smile on his face. 

“Hi,” she says softly, looking around in confusion. Everyone else in the cafeteria has stopped whatever they were doing and is watching them. That’s the kind of person Carter is. Loud and charismatic, always quick to crack a joke, never without an audience. 

“So I’ve been thinking. You wanna hang out sometime?” he asks. 

Prim’s eyes widen. “Really?” 

“Yeah, really. Come with me to the Screening Hall. Tomorrow night.”

A flush crawls up Prim’s neck and settles high on her cheeks. Carter is undoubtedly attractive, with high cheekbones and shiny hair and perfectly white teeth. A Townie kid whose clothes always fit and never have any rips or stains. They have never spoken before this moment, and Prim had just assumed that he had no idea that she even existed. 

Face on fire, Prim nods, and Carter turns away to triumphantly high five his friends. Her heart flutters in her chest for the rest of the day, exhilarated by his attention, thrilled by the knowledge that someone likes her. 

“That guy’s a dick,” Gale grumbles the following morning when Prim tells him her news. “You should stay away from him.”

“What?” Her stomach sinks. “You don’t even know him.”

“People talk, Prim. He’s not good news.”

She throws down her snare and stands up. “Why can’t you be happy for me?”

“I’m just looking out for you.” 

“I think you’re jealous,” she challenges. “I think you don’t like the thought of me hanging out with a guy who isn’t you.”

Gale’s jaw tightens. “I don’t like the thought of you hanging out with a guy who’s an asshole.”

“You can’t tell me what to do.”

“Fine. Don’t come crying to me when he proves me right.”

“ _ Fine _ .” Prim grabs her bow. “You don’t have to be such an ass, you know.” She storms off, leaving Gale in the woods alone. 

* * *

Despite Gale’s warnings, her date with Carter is lovely. He takes her to the Screening Hall, which is a Town building that shows films produced by the Capitol, a new one every two weeks. Prim had never been inside before, the tickets an unjustifiable expense. Carter buys her a bucket of popcorn and some drink that is bubbly and sickly sweet. It gives her an immediate stomach ache. They sit on heavily cushioned chairs in a dark room and watch some gaudy production about a woman who undergoes a hideous makeover in order to win over a man. 

Halfway through the film, Carter puts his arm over Prim’s shoulders and pulls her close. She lets her head rest on his shoulder and tries to focus on the screen, but then his fingers are on her chin, and he’s tilting her head up, and Prim barely remembers to close her eyes before his lips are on hers. 

It’s her first kiss, and she doesn’t know what to do with her hands, so she leaves them folded on her lap as Carter’s lips press insistently against hers. He’s actually pressing a little too hard, and her neck starts to strain as she fights to keep her head in place. When he finally pulls back, the light of the screen is bright enough to illuminate his face, his lips twisted in a wide grin.

“You’re so pretty,” he says, grabbing a strand of her hair, loose and flowing around her shoulders, and twirling it around his finger. “The prettiest girl in school.”

Prim flushes and bites her lip. “You think so?”

Carter doesn’t answer, just leans in to kiss her again. By the time the film ends and the lights come up, Prim’s lips are red and swollen, and her hair is a mess of knots. 

She sees Carter every day. They take walks around the town, ducking behind random buildings to make out whenever they get the chance. Prim quickly becomes enraptured with him, high off the feeling she gets when he tells her how pretty she is, how much he likes her, how all of his friends are jealous that he gets to be with her. Carter is all she wants to talk about, and the more she does, the surlier Gale becomes. He gets so grumpy that Prim ends up blowing him off one Saturday morning. It’s the first time in years she’s ever missed a day in the woods, except for when she had the flu the winter before. She expects Gale to come looking for her, to give her shit about ditching him, but he never does. 

She tries to ignore the way her disappointment stings. 

After a few weeks, Carter invites her to his house for dinner. He lives deep in Town, close to the Mayor’s mansion, and Prim is fraught with nerves the entire time. She digs out her pretty pink blouse and asks Hazelle to starch her nicest pair of pants, and her nerves are slightly eased when Carter’s mother greets her at the door with a hug and a warm smile.

“Well, aren’t you a beautiful little thing,” she says as she welcomes Prim inside. 

But her nerves return when Carter’s father lets his eyes rake over her as he takes a seat at the dinner table. “Got quite a figure on you,” he says, winking at his son.

Prim looks over at Carter in shock, waiting for him to say something.

“What?” Carter says, laughing at her expression. “He’s right. You’re hot, babe.”

His mother serves a hearty vegetable stew that Prim chokes down despite her unease. She offers to help clean up, but Mrs. Alvarez waves her off with a laugh, and Carter quickly whisks her off to his room. Prim stands awkwardly in the center as he shuts the door, shocked by how much space he has all to himself. His bed is twice the size of hers, and he has a large wooden dresser and a matching desk, books and knickknacks strewn about every surface, useless objects collected just because he could. 

“Come lay down with me.” Carter takes her hand and leads her onto his bed. The mattress dips under their weight, and she lets him guide her onto her back and hover over her. Her hands find his shoulders and they kiss languidly, the room silent save for the creak of the bed and the wet smacking sounds of their mouths. 

Carter’s hands eventually leave her waist and trail up over her torso to squeeze her breasts. Prim sucks in a sharp breath at the unfamiliar touch, and her eyes pop open when his fingers start to work at the buttons of her shirt. Prim grabs his hands and pushes them away. 

“What are you doing?” she asks. 

“Come on,” he says, trying to kiss her again. “Don’t be a prude. Let me see ‘em.”

Prim shoves him back. “Carter, no. I– I don’t want to do that.”

He scoffs. “You were a shirt like that and don’t want to show me your tits?”

She’s trembling now, unsure. No one has ever seen her breasts before. She knows that this is only the natural progression of their relationship, but she thinks they’re moving too fast. She’s curious about sex, knows she wants to do it sometime soon, but they’ve only been together for a few weeks. Prim wraps her arms around her torso, hunching in on herself. “I– I thought I looked nice. I wanted to look nice for you.”

“You don’t look nice, you look like a slut,” Carter spits. “What am I supposed to think with your tits spilling out like that?” He worms a hand between her legs, tugging at the zipper of her pants. “I’m your boyfriend, aren’t I? You’re supposed to let me do this.” 

Prim digs her elbow into his gut. Carter wheezes and rolls off of her, and she quickly climbs down off the bed. 

“I want to go home,” she says, lower lip trembling.

Carter rolls his eyes and flops down onto his back, rubbing his stomach. “Fine. Go.”

She falters. It’s way past dark now. “Y–you’re not going to walk me?”

“Are you kidding me? Just go. Can’t believe I wasted my time on you.”

“Wasted your–”

“Why else would I hang around some Seam slut? It’s not like we’re going to get married or anything. Should’ve known you’d be a bitch.”

Prim doesn’t stick around to hear anything else. Tears streaming down her cheeks, she races down the stairs and bursts through the front door, tearing out into the street. She races towards the Seam, but instead of going home, her feet take her straight to the Hawthorne’s house. She pounds at their door until Vick swings it open, looking at her in surprise. 

He turns back into the house. “Gale! Come quick!”

Prim hiccups and tries to wipe her eyes as heavy footsteps thunder towards them. Gale appears in the doorway and takes one look at her before gathering her up in his arms, and Prim collapses against his chest, letting her tears stain his shirt, finally feeling safe in the warmth of his embrace. 

“H-he wanted to– H-he s-said–” she stutters out, unable to form a complete sentence around her sobs. “I didn’t–”

“Shh. It’s okay,” Gale murmurs, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

* * *

**PART FIVE**

* * *

There’s a fire burning in the hearth and they sit cross-legged in front of it, each of them holding a cup of tea. Hazelle and the kids are asleep in their rooms, and Gale has wrapped Prim up in a heavy blanket that smells like cloves. She’s stopped crying, but her face feels dry from the salt of her tears and there’s a steady headache pounding behind her eyes. 

“I feel so stupid,” she says, playing with a loose thread of the blanket. “You were right. I should have listened to you.”

“You’re not stupid. He tried to take advantage of you. It’s not your fault that he’s an asshole.”

Prim takes a hearty gulp of the tea. “I don’t know why I freaked out. I should have just let him… you know. I’m gonna have to do it someday.”

“Bullshit.” Gale’s voice is hard, his eyes burning. “A little prick like him doesn’t deserve you. When you decide that you’re ready to take that step, it should be with someone who treats you right. Someone who knows how special you are.”

Warmth blooms in Prim’s chest. “You think I’m special?”

Gale ducks his head. “‘Course I do.”

She bites her lip and focuses on the tea leaves swirling at the bottom of her cup. The fire crackles in front of them, shadows dancing over their faces.

“What if I never find that someone?”

Gale scoffs. “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course you will.”

“I thought Carter was nice. What if I think the next guy is nice, and I’m wrong, too?” Prim puts the cup of tea down and shifts onto her knees, an idea forming in her head. “I don’t want my first time to be with someone like that.”

“It won’t be,” Gale says sternly. 

“You don’t know that,” Prim challenges. She puts a hand on Gale’s leg, moving into his space. “Do you think I’m pretty?”

Gale tenses. “Prim…”

“Do you?”

A long pause.

“I think you’re beautiful.”

An electric shock zips up her spine. Emboldened, Prim climbs onto his lap. His hands settle on her waist, hers resting on his shoulders. 

“Would you ever hurt me?”

“Never,” he says. “Prim, this isn’t–”

_ If she asks him something directly, he won’t say no. _

“Will you show me what it’s like?” she whispers, eyes wide and hopeful. “Please, Gale? There’s no one I trust more than you.”

He swallows thickly. “You don’t know what you’re asking for.”

Prim frowns. “Yes I do.” She’s thought about it more times than she’d care to admit, even before she started seeing Carter. Her mind wanders late at night when she can’t sleep, or when she wakes from fragmented dreams of wandering hands and bruising kisses. “I’ve heard other girls talking before, about how good it can feel. I just want it to be like that. Won’t you make it good for me?”

Gale doesn’t say a word, just runs his big hands over her back until she relaxes, tucking her head onto his shoulder and wrapping her arms around his back. The fight slowly leaves her, thinking he’s turning her down. Her night has been a roller coaster of emotions and they’re just finally catching up to her, leaving her body heavy with exhaustion and her mind broiling with rejection and embarrassment. 

Then:

“You sure this is what you want?”

Prim’s head shoots up. “Yes,” she breathes, excitement swirling in her stomach. “I want it to be you.”

“If I...If  _ we _ do this, it has to be a one-time thing. Do you understand?”

Prim nods enthusiastically. She can’t believe he’s actually agreeing to this. “One time. I swear.”

“Nobody can know.”

“Duh. I’m not an idiot.”

“Good.” Gale smirks and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “That makes one of us.”

* * *

“Have you ever touched yourself before?”

Prim feels herself blush. She has, of course, when her dreams wake her up and leave her with a racing heart and throbbing between her legs. Those nights, she slips a hand between her thighs and tries to ease the ache, but nothing ever feels right, and her actions only ever leaving her frustrated and wanting more.

“I’ve tried, but I’ve never…”

“You’ve never what?” Gale coaxes. “You’ve gotta say it, if that’s what you want.”

“I’ve never made myself come,” Prim whispers, barely audible. 

They’re spread out on a thick blanket in the grass, hidden behind the cover of the treeline. Prim is sitting between Gale’s legs, her back to his chest, his right hand resting on her stomach and his left hand high on her thigh. 

“You want me to show you?” he murmurs in her ear.

Prim nods.

“Ask me.”

“I– I want you to show me.”

“Show you want?”

Prim’s breath hitches. “I want you to show me how to come.”

After making sure–  _ again _ – that this was what she really wanted, Gale had fallen into his role with more enthusiasm than Prim had anticipated. He seems almost as eager as she is. She likes to think that it’s because he wants this as much as her, that this isn’t just a favor to him, a task he is begrudgingly getting over with. 

Prim watches as Gale’s deft fingers unbutton her pants and slip inside, his index and middle fingers smoothing over the seam of her cunt. He settles over her clit, pressing lightly over the fabric of her underwear, and Prim wraps her hands around his arms.

“You feel that?” he says softly, rubbing slow circles around the sensitive nub. “That feel good?”

Prim nods again, and Gale lifts his fingers off her. She makes an impatient noise. “ _ Hey _ .”

“Use your words.”

“It feels good,” she says hurriedly, desperate for him to get his hands back on her. He slips them under the band of her underwear this time, lightly grazing her pubic hair before spreading her lips aside and giving her clit a quick pinch. 

“Oh!” she yelps, and arches her hips for more. His fingers are thick and calloused, and she feels a warmth start to pool in her core. He continues rubbing slow circles, then he starts to speed up, his fingers more insistent.

“Gotta work yourself up nice and easy,” Gale tells her, his voice low in her ear. She can feel something pressing into her back, realizes with a shock that he’s hard, that he’s hard because of  _ her _ . 

“I–I feel–”

“What do you feel?”

She bites her lip to stifle a groan. There’s something building inside of her, a tingling at the base of her spine, warmth spreading all over her body until she feels like she’s on fire. Her toes curl and her thighs start to tremble. Gale’s fingers rub faster, tighter circles, and she feels like she’s standing on the edge of a cliff, ready to fall. 

“Tell me how you feel, baby.”

_ Baby _ . It’s that word that doesn’t it, the shock of it sending her spiraling over the edge. It makes her feel small and protected, delicate and divine in his arms. Prim arches her back and cries out, stars exploding behind her eyelids, cunt clenching around nothing, Gale’s voice echoing in her ear.

_ Baby _ .

Gale kisses her temple when she slumps back against him, heart pounding so loud she swears he must be able to hear it.

“You ready for more?”

Prim nods lazily, boneless as he lays her down on her back, whining when he slips his hand from between her legs. She feels like a doll as he undresses her, letting him peel her pants down her legs and lift her arms so he can strip off her shirt. She should feel nervous, self-conscious, but instead she feels relaxed. Confident. Safe.

“God, look at you,” Gale mutters to himself, his hand ghosting up over her stomach, cupping her breast. His thumb flicks at her nipple and she gasps. 

“You, too,” Prim says softly, gently kicking at this side. He still has his clothes on. The hard line of his erection is straining against his pants, and Prim can’t take her eyes off it.

Once he’s as naked as well, he crawls over her, kneeling between her legs. His cock bobs between them, thick and heavy, swollen and red at the tip. Prim reaches for it, relishes in the choked moan Gale released when her fingers graze its side. There’s a dark purple vein twisting below the head and she traces it with her thumb.

A sudden pang of anxiety shoots through her. He’s big. Too big. She can barely wrap her fingers all the way around him. How is he supposed to fit inside her?

“Is it going to hurt?” she asks, her voice small. 

Gale puts a hand on the back of each of her thighs, pushing them up, spreading her wide. The head of his cock bumps against her clit, making her jump. He pushes forward, through the slick of her cunt, until the base of his cock rests just below her clit and the tip reaches her navel.

“Yeah,” he says. “It’s gonna hurt.”

Prim is silent as he splits her open, her hands gripping his upper arms, nails digging into his biceps. He tells her that he’ll stop if it’s too much, that she needs to tell him if she changes her mind, but she doesn’t want to stop. She wants the pain, wants the stretch, wants to feel him break her in and make her whole. Wants to give this piece of herself to him. 

“Fuck,” Gale breathes once he’s fully sheathed inside her. A single tear rolls down Prim’s cheek and he kisses it away. Her jaw aches from clenching it so tight. “You’re doing so good, baby.”

Prim bites her lip and stares up at him, blue eyes glassy, the tip of her nose red. “Are you gonna move now?”

Gale nods, and shifts back a little bit. Prim lets out a squeak of pain, but her discomfort starts to fade when he pushes back in. He doesn’t pull out very far, just enough to get her used to the gentle rocking motion. Once her pain has faded, Prim grows impatient. She pushes up onto her elbows.

“More,” she says, her gaze falling to where they’re joined. She wants to see what he sees, wants to watch as his cock disappears inside her and comes out shiny and wet, covered in the pinkish sheen of her arousal and blood. The feeling is different than when he rubbed her clit– deeper, more visceral, a confusing painpleasure mix. Prim doesn’t quite understand it, but she doesn’t want it to stop. 

“Touch yourself,” Gale tells her, his voice a low growl. “Like how I showed you.”

She does. Two little fingers rubbing tight circles on her clit, surprising herself with how good it feels in conjunction with his movements. Her fingers are smoother than his, and she has to press harder to get some friction, but that soon enough that feeling deep inside her starts to build again. 

“Fuck, you’re close, I can feel it,” Gale groans. He’s fucking her harder now, rougher, urged on by her constant pleas.  _ Harder. Faster. More. _ “Let me see you come on my cock. Come on.”

Prim’s only answer is a high-pitched whine. It feels amazing to have something to clench down on this time, his cock so deep that she feels it in her throat. Her eyes roll back in her head, high on the feeling of being full of him. 

“That’s it, baby. Let go,” Gale says as she comes again. He fucks her through it, through her twisting and writhing and strangled cries, accented by the filthy wet, sloshing sounds between them.“Perfect. You’re fucking perfect.”

He doesn’t stop fucking her, and before her orgasm is over another one starts. Prim clutches wildly at his shoulders, desperate to cling to something as she screams her throat raw. When he finally stills, body shuddering under her hands, Prim can feel a sticky warmth pool inside of her. It’s a strange feeling, and she clenches the walls of her cunt curiously, making Gale release a strangled moan. They catch their breath for a few moments before Gale pulls out of her, and Prim is surprised by the hollow ache that is left behind. 

She wonders how she is supposed to go on without feeling that fullness again. 

Gale’s cum drips out of her and onto the blanket beneath them. Prim would be embarrassed if not for the way Gale watches it happen, his eyes awed and hungry. She clenches her cunt again, an involuntary response to the way he’s looking at her, and feels another thick wad of cum drip out. 

They haven’t even kissed.

It’s an awkward walk back to the fenceline. Prim feels sore already, her legs still shaky with the aftershocks of her pleasure. She keeps glancing at Gale and then looking away, unease swirling in her stomach. She wonders if he regrets it, or if he’s thinking the same thing that she is, that they’re not going to be able to stop themselves from doing this again. 

When they get to her house, Prim lingers at her door. 

“Don’t forget to take the tea,” Gale says, looking down at his feet. She had put a few of her mom’s special leaves aside, ready to brew the second she walks in the door. A baby is the last thing either of them need.

“I won’t.” Prim waits for him to say something else, and when it becomes clear that he won’t, she sighs and moves to go inside. 

But then Gale’s hand grabs her wrist and he tugs her over to the side of the house, away from any windows, out of the view of the street. Prim lets out a surprised gasp as he cups her face and leans in, kissing her hard and deep. She grabs the collar of his shirt and pulls herself up onto her tiptoes, pressing herself as close as she can. His hands settle low on her back, just over the curve of her ass.

“My mom won’t be home tonight,” she says quickly when they pull apart. An offer, before he can say anything.

Gale sighs, but she can sense his hesitation.“Prim…”

“What if one time isn’t enough?” she murmurs.

He rests his forehead against hers. “It has to be.”

Prim shakes her head, brushing their noses together. “No it doesn’t,” she argues. “There’s still more you can show me.” She wants to learn how to bring him pleasure, too, with her hands and her mouth. She wants to find out what it feels like to come on his tongue. 

His hands flex against her back and he kisses her again. She knows that she’s won when he pulls away and starts towards the road, head down to hide his grin. 

“So does that mean I’ll see you tonight?” she calls as he walks away. 

Gale turns back around, and his smile is wide and bright. “Yeah,” he says. “I’ll see you tonight.”


End file.
